Substitute defense gets it done for Bears

It’s not surprising that the Bears were able to create turnovers and win with defense.

But they surprised even themselves sometimes with their ability to patch together a side that’s been decimated by injuries.

In beating the Giants Thursday night, they were using undrafted rookies at defensive end (David Bass) and defensive tackle (Zach Minter), and started a guy who was signed two weeks ago (Landon Cohen) after putting two defensive tackles on IR and having Stephen Paea inactive with a toe injury.

At one point, Bass started directing traffic, telling known-commodity Julius Peppers to slide inside on a pass-rush down.

They were also without cornerback Charles Tillman (replaced by Zachary Bowman), and lost middle linebacker D.J. Williams in the second quarter with a chest injury (putting rookie Jon Bostic on the field). Coupled with a short week, it was quite a performance.

“It was ‘next man up’ all over the defense,” Bears coach Marc Trestman said. “[Defensive coordinator] Mel Tucker did a great job on our staff, just getting the guys ready without any practice.”

If they get a few players healthy, that’s a good sign for later games when they will actually prepare.

This whole year has been some of the worst defence I have seen the Bears play in a long time.
No team has a problem driving the length of field when ever they want.
They take the ball away at a decent rate but if they don’t get the turnover they don’t even slow down the other teams offence. Third and long is really easy to convert on these guys.
Shea McClellin is to light and weak to be a DE. He gets thrown around like a rag doll by tight ends with ease. Why we drafted a 3-4 linebacker to play DE in a 4-3 has always baffled me.

Playing the Giants makes heroes of us all. Right, Panthers? Anyone? Bueller?

blackandbluedivision says:Oct 11, 2013 11:14 AM

It’s mind-boggling how bad that d-line is. Barely a pass-rush and they ran at will. Jacobs is a beast but that was insane. They just couldn’t stop him.

I want to know what Julius Peppers is doing. He is an expensive waste of space. He’s not even a factor in these games. McClellin is officially a bust. I said when they drafted him he should have been used as the next Von Miller at OLB. But, he sucks as a 4-3 end.

Good job all around Bears!
Gints 0-6, LOL
Eli, most ints in 1st 6 games since Dan Fouts, 1986! hahahahahahhaahha
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Oh yes. Very impressive. A 6 point win that they almost gave up in the last minute to an 0-5 team, after giving up 106 rushing yards to a man who didn’t play last year and a team that is averaging 58 yards a game on the ground.

Good job all around Bears!
Gints 0-6, LOL
Eli, most ints in 1st 6 games since Dan Fouts, 1986! hahahahahahhaahha
——————————————————————-

Oh yes. Very impressive. A 6 point win that they almost gave up in the last minute to an 0-5 team, after giving up 106 rushing yards to a man who didn’t play last year and a team that is averaging 58 yards a game on the ground.

Oh yes, impressive indeed.

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Pretty sure the person you are quoting is not a bears fan. Most likely the fan of another nfc least team.
Most bears fan know this was a game we barely won against a bad team and that our defence is putrid this year.

I was a little skeptical of the defense to begin with during the offseason and the injury’s to Melton and Collins + the decline of Peppers + Conte/Wright being in no man’s land all the time have only made things worse. I admire the “next man up” philosophy because, really, what is Mel Tucker supposed to do?? When you’re given bad tools to do a job, well, then the job you complete is probably going to be bad, too. I still maintain the belief Emery is molding the Bears defense into a 3-4 scheme, but that won’t happen until the offseason. Until then, we wait and just hope the offense scores enough points to offset the inadequacies of the defense. 4-2 is better then 3-3, right??

Yeah the Bears definitely need some real help on defense and losing to starters doesn’t help. They worked on he O-line this last off season. Looks like they need to work on the D-Line this off season. The DEs can only do so much when you have no DTs!

I don’t see the Bears defensive performance as particularly good. Every time that has a running back on their roster has been able to run against them. I’m not sure whether to blame Mel Tucker or the rash of injuries that is continuing to mount.